Brave New World of Zero Risk: Covert Strategy in British Science Policy Martin J Walker Slingshot Publications October 2005 Brave New World of Zero Risk: Covert Strategy in British Science Policy Martin J. Walker First published as an e-book, October 2005 © Slingshot Publications, October 2005 BM Box 8314, London WC1N 3XX, England Type set by Viviana D. Guinarte in Book Antiqua 11/12, Verdana Edited by Rose Shepherd Cover design by Andy Dark In this downloadable Pdf form this book is free and can be distributed by anyone as long as neither the contents or the cover are changed or altered in any way and that this condition is imposed upon anyone who further receives or distributes the book. In the event of anyone wanting to print hard copies for distribution, rather than personal use, they should consult the author through Slingshot Publications. Selected parts of the book can be reproduced in any form, except that of articles under the author’s name, for which he would in other circumstances receive payment; again these can be negotiated through Slingshot Publications. More information about this book can be obtained at: www.zero-risk.org For Marxists and neo liberals alike it is technological advance that fuels economic development, and economic forces that shape society. Politics and culture are secondary phenomena, sometimes capable of retarding human progress; but in the last analysis they cannot prevail against advancing technology and growing productivity. John Gray1 The Bush government is certainly not the first to abuse science, but they have raised the stakes and injected ideology like no previous administration. The result is scientific advisory panels stacked with industry hacks, agencies ignoring credible panel recommendations and concerted efforts to undermine basic environmental and conservation biology science. Tim Montague2 Groups of experts, academics, science lobbyists and supporters of industry, hiding behind a smoke screen of ‘confidentiality’ have no right to assume legislative powers for which they have no democratic mandate. The citizens and their elected representatives are ethically competent to democratically evaluate and shape their own future. Wilma Kobusch3 1 The New Yorker. Volume 52, Number 13 · August 11, 2005. John Gray, ‘The World is Round.’ A review of The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty- first Century by Thomas L. Friedman Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 2 Tim Montague. ‘Honest Science Under Siege: Conflicts of interest, “seeding results” and a broken monitoring system erode the public’s trust’. Internews. July 22, 2005. Citing ‘Scientific Integrity In Policymaking; Investigation Into The Bush Administration’s Misuse Of Science’ (Cambridge, Mass.: Union of Concerned Scientists, February 2004). And ‘Scientific Integrity In Policymaking; Further Investigation’ (Cambridge, Mass.: Union of Concerned Scientists, July 2004), both available at: http://www.ucsusa.org/global_envi- ronment/rsi/index.cfm 3 Founder member of the 1994 International Initiative Against The Planned Bio Ethics Convention with Erika Feyerabend, Jobst Paul and Ursel Fox. Because I believe that technological development is the last remaining historical force abroad in the world that could plausibly be described as potentially revolutionary, and because I believe that we might make of technological development our most tangible hope that humanity might truly and finally eliminate poverty, needless suffering, illiteracy, exploitation, inequality before the law, and social injustice for everyone on earth I am often mistaken for a technophile. And because I believe that whenever technological development fails to be governed by legitimate democratic processes, whenever it is driven instead by parochial national, economic, or ideological interests, that it will almost always be a profoundly dangerous and often devastating force, exacerbating existing inequalities, facilitating exploitation, exaggerating legitimate discontent and thereby encouraging dangerous social instabilities, threatening unprecedented risks and inflicting unprecedented harms on individuals, societies, species, and the environment as a whole I am often mistaken for a technophobe. Dale Carrico4 4 7/01/2005 http://cyborgdemocracy.net/2005/07/technoprogressivism- beyond.html#comments. Dedication This book is dedicated to Marco Mamone Capria, whose thinking on science and democracy is completely joined up. To the memory of Serge Lang, 1927 – 2005, whose book Challenges contains founding arguments against the politicisation of science and how to act on it. And to the memory of Brian Inglis, 1916 – 1993, whose book The Hidden Power introduced me to a particular aspect of science. ~ Acknowledgements Thanks to Viviana, Rose, John, Frederica, Robert, Bob, Liz, Jonathan, Finlay, Elaine, Mags, Andy, Louise, Tony, Loïc, Marianne, Michelle, Anne, Sepp, Gordon, Emma, Rebecca, Ivan, Eric, Louise, Teddy, Steven, and Barclays Bank. All of whom have supported me with either love, kindness, friendship, money or editorial help over the past couple of years. Once again thanks to the lawyers who worked hard nit picking with a purpose. Thanks to Latin Quarter, Bonnie Tyler, Cyndi Lauper, Pedro Vargas, Paul Young, Rod Stewart, Kate Rusby, The Dualers, Joni Mitchell, Timi Yuro, Lolita Garrido, Nina Simone, Whitney Houston, John Coates Jnr. and Eric Doney, Bryan Ferry, Catalani and Puccini. T. Coraghessan Boyle, George P. Pelecanos, Alan Hunter, Lawrence Block, Mark McShane, Nicolas Freeling, Gary Krist, A. J. Quinnell and Robert Crais, for keeping me company while I wrote. CONTENTS Part One Preface | xi Introduction | xvii 1 Cleaning up the Crime Scene | 1 2 Corporate Science Takes a Knock | 9 3 The Emergent Campaign for Corporate Science | 15 Part Two 4 Trotsky Meets Hayek | 29 5 Dr Michael Fitzpatrick | 37 And MMR | 40 And ME | 51 And Alternative Medicine | 59 6 Is it a Bird? Is it a Plane? No, It’s Lord Dick | 69 7 Open Government, Shut to the People | 77 8 Life and Obscure Letters of Lord Dick | 87 Risk Analysis and AXA Sun Life | 96 Part Three 9 Against Nature ~ Naturally | 99 The People Involved | 105 10 Guiding the Media | 111 The Social Issues Research Centre | 113 SIRC People | 116 The Guidelines | 118 11 Science Sans Sense | 127 Whose Sense and Whose Science | 129 The Trustees | 138 The Advisory Board | 145 The Greatest of These is Charity | 168 Part Four 12 The Resistible Rise of Rebecca Bowden | 173 13 Science Media Centre | 183 Science Advisory Group | 191 14 The Major Players | 193 Sir Richard Sykes | 193 Professor Christopher J. Leaver | 201 Professor Simon Wessely | 203 Professor David King | 208 15 The Concerned Scientists | 211 16 Just Another Conference | 217 Part Five 17 The National Health Secret Service | 223 Ganging Up on the Grassroots | 225 The State Plan | 227 18 Prime Time For Another Project | 233 Vivienne Parry | 237 ME/CFS Gets a MakeOver | 242 The GUS Trust | 245 19 PRIME Management | 247 The Research Project | 250 Who’s Who in the PRIME Steering Group | 252 Prime Conclusions | 255 20 The Coming Boom in Mental Illness | 257 Part Six 21 You Take the Risk, We’ll Take the Money | 265 The Magic of Science, Making the Evidence Disappear | 267 21st Century Political Science | 269 Who Wants Risk Free, We Just Want the Truth | 273 22 The Corruption of Science | 277 European Convention on Bioethics and Human Rights | 280 23 What the Corporations Are Covering Up | 283 24 From Political Party to Corporate Science Lobby | 295 Anti–Science or Real Science | 298 PART ONE Preface Introduction 1 Cleaning up the Crime Scene 2 Corporate Science Takes a Knock 3 The Emergent Campaign for Corporate Science Preface I am especially concerned when people who construct a reality askew from the outside world have the influence or power to impose their reality in the classroom, in the media, and in the formulation of policy, domestic or foreign. I find the situation especially serious when political opinions are passed off as science, and thereby acquire even more force. Serge Lang5 HAS IT EVER occurred to you how impossibly difficult it must be to compute the multiple risks of contemporary society? Where does one start, for example, with a woman of 55 who worked for 20 years as a hairdresser, eats only factory farmed or processed food, is taking three different prescription drugs, and HRT and now lives in an area where pesticides are regularly sprayed in neighbouring fields? Do insurance actuaries actual- ly still assess risk seriously in such complex situations? Explaining risk in contemporary society places some of the cleverest communicators in a double bind. The first crude, throw- away comment used by the practised risk analyst when faced with a personal statement about a particular risk is, ‘Of course nothing is without risk.’ In the boardroom, however, or when planning a strategy with a client over a lunch, risk analysts have to use other argu- ments. In these environs, even a nano admission of risk, could sound the death knell for an industry. In the cut and thrust of 5 Serge Lang, Challenges. Springer-Verlag, New York 1998. xii | Brave New World of Zero Risk public debate, the statement ‘Nothing is without risk’ will inevitably be followed by the question, ‘How high is that risk?’ And then by the same question in relation to every product and every industry; the risk analysts’ nightmare begins. The early corporate risk producers, operating in the years immediately after the Second World War, the cigarette and asbestos manufacturers, fought each battle alone without advisers or public relations experts, and not until after the Sixties with the occasional epidemiologist. The strategy then was to admit to risk, but to suggest that public health regula- tions, despite encumbering the industry, diminished the risk so substantially that it was no longer of concern to the consumer. In the first years of the new millennium, however, every- thing is quite different. As the developed world enters a new era of post-industrial6 production, possible new risks are accu- mulating for the health of both individual consumers and col- lective societies.